I gave a shaky laugh and said, “I guess I am. Who would have thought?”
“So when are you coming home?”
“I’ll be late. I haven’t even started my rounds yet. I had to talk to some people first.”
“Well, be careful.”
“Yeah, I love you, too.”
I felt calmer after I hung up. I had a big brother who cared about me, and I had handled a lot of stress in one day with only a couple of minor breakdowns. I was making progress.
As I was leaving the diner, I saw Tanisha heading for the ladies’ room, so I made a U-turn and followed her. She was already in a stall when I got there. I washed my hands and dried them while I waited. When she came out, she grinned shyly at me. I watched approvingly as she lathered her hands, then handed her some paper towels.
I said, “Judy said you did some cooking for somebody in Marilee Doerring’s neighborhood—where that man was killed.”
“Not no more I don’t.”
“Oh.”
“Hunh-uh, I wouldn’t set foot on that street again, no way, hunh-uh. Bunch of stupid people live on that street, and that man’s the stupidest.”
“What man?”
“You know, that one I told to kiss my ass, that’s who.”
“I didn’t hear you say his name.”
“I guess I didn’t say it. Come to think of it, I don’t believe I did.”
“Tanisha, could you say it now?”
She laughed, but looked at me warily. “Why you want to know?”
I was stumped. I didn’t know why I wanted to know, I just did. I said, “I guess I’m just nosy. I work around there, too, and I’d just sort of like to know who to watch out for. I don’t know what the guy did to piss you off so much, but you seem pretty easy to get along with, so whatever it was must have been something I wouldn’t like, either.”
She pushed out her lips and furled her brow while she considered my reason, and then nodded. “I guess you got a right to know, if you work around there. He accused me of stealing something, like I gave a rat’s ass about the stupid thing, and it wasn’t even his.”
“Why’d he do that?”
“He seen me getting this little piece of pipe out of the trash when I was on my way to the bus stop. Somebody had put it out at the curb, and I saw it. It’s at the curb, it’s the trash, it ain’t stealing to take it, right? Somebody threw it away, it’s for anybody to take that wants it. Short little piece of brass pipe about two feet long.”
“That must have been the Graysons’ house. They hung a carousel horse on some brass pipe.”
“Uh-huh. I don’t know whose house it was. It’s on the other side of the woods where that man got killed. They just put the pipe out and I saw it and picked it up. I thought maybe I could make a towel rack or something out of it.”
“And somebody accused you of stealing it?”
“Yeah, this little runt drove in the driveway and yelled at me like I was some kind of criminal. He said, ‘What you doing with that, girl?’ Called me girl, the old fool. I said I wasn’t doing nothing with it and he come over and yanked it out of my hand. Took it away from me! Then he said, ‘You go on home now, girl. You got no business here.’”
Tanisha’s eyes were snapping with humiliation and anger. “I guess he thinks he lives on some kind of plantation and I’m one of his slaves. But them days are over, honey! Ain’t nobody gonna talk to me like that. That’s when I told him to kiss my big fat black ass, and I waggled it at him when I said it, too. I left and I ain’t never going on that street again.”
She threw her wadded paper towel in the bin and headed for the door. “I gotta get back to the kitchen or they’re gonna send somebody looking for me.”
“Who was he?”
She paused with one hand holding the door open. “I don’t know who he was. Never saw him before, and hope I don’t never see him again, neither.”
“Was he bald?”
“Bald? I don’t think so. I didn’t notice him bald.”
“His car, was it a black Miata?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know cars. It was black, one of them little low cars.”
“When did that happen, Tanisha?”
She frowned. “Thursday night. Why’re you so excited about it?”
“Because whoever killed the man in Marilee Doerring’s house cracked his head with a blunt instrument. Like a piece of brass pipe. Somebody saw a black Miata around there that night, and later there was a bald-headed man acting suspicious.”
Her eyes grew wide. “You think that little pig that hollered at me killed that man?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Would you recognize him if you saw him again?”
“Oh yeah, I won’t never forget him.”
We gave each other solemn stares just thinking of all the implications, then she moved on and let the door swing shut behind her enormous backside. After a few moments while I let it sink in, I followed her. Hot damn, maybe Tanisha and I had solved the murders.
Twenty-Three
As I went around the end of the diner’s counter, I glanced toward the empty stool where Dr. Coffey had been sitting when I talked to him. Suddenly, a piece of our conversation fell into my brain as if it had been poised above my head, just waiting for me to return to the scene. I had said, “My client left town and didn’t leave a number where she could be reached.” I had said, “I was thinking you might have some idea where she might have gone. Like where her business takes her, or where her family lives.”
When he jumped up and threatened to have me arrested, I had assumed he was jumpy about the possibility of getting involved in a murder investigation. But I hadn’t mentioned a murder, and I had never used Marilee’s name. All I’d said was that I was a pet-sitter. Surely Marilee Doerring wasn’t the only woman he knew who owned a pet. I wasn’t even sure the news of the murder had been on the news yet, and even if it had been, how could he have been so sure that’s what I was talking about?
My hand was reaching for my cell to call Guidry and tell him all my brilliant deductions, when I caught sight of the wall clock behind the counter and changed my mind. I was over an hour late with my pet visits, and if I didn’t get my mind back on my own business, I could lose it.
Like a robot on bunny batteries, I got in the Bronco and started my afternoon rounds, apologizing to each cat for being late and promising to make it up to them later. I left Billy Elliot’s run for last, rapping on Tom’s door to alert him that I was there and then using my key. Just as I stepped inside, a loud TV voice said my name. Tom and Billy Elliot were parked in front of the TV, and Carl Winnick’s infuriated face filled the screen.
“The woman has a key to the house where at least one of these murders took place, and possibly both of them. She has a history of emotional instability that caused the Sheriff’s Department to dismiss her, and is clearly the most obvious suspect. Yet the Sheriff’s Department has not arrested her, and I want to know why.”
Both Tom and Billy Elliot felt me behind them at the same moment and swung their heads. Tom grabbed his remote and clicked off the TV.
“Shit, Dixie, I didn’t know you were here. I’m sorry you heard that.”
I wasn’t sure my voice would work, but it did, even though it came out a rusty croak. “Tom, do you believe what he said?”
“Good God, Dixie, of course I don’t. Carl Winnick is an officious, self-righteous idiot.”
“Then why were you watching his show?”
“That wasn’t his show. That was the evening news with a clip of what Winnick is saying on his show.”
My knees bent like Silly Putty. I sank onto a chair and stared at Tom. “So it’s not just Dr. Win’s usual fans who got that?”
“Don’t let it get to you, Dixie.”